Reply #26: Bloch is definitely a bad guy [View All]

[suffragette]

He fits the pattern of the Bush administration appointing people in key positions to undermine those governmental entities. They did the same thing at the DOJ, especially in the civil rights division.

Bloch is in opposition to everything the OSC should be about.

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) was created to protect whistle-blower rights and investigate improper political activity by government employees.http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=4797325&page=1

Bloch is all about denying rights to people, not enforcing them (See posts upthread on this)and he obstructed the investigation into Hatch Act violations.

Here's info from CREW about these areas:

http://citizensforethics.org/node/27786
The Office of Special Counsel (OSC), headed up by highly controversial presidential appointee Scott Bloch, is the wrong entity for this investigation. The fact that OSC has been charged with handling these matters suggests the possibility that the White House is orchestrating a cover-up of its illegal and improper activities.

Bloch has come under widespread criticism for his gross mismanagement and politicization of the office. Bloch is currently under investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) for his mistreatment of career appointees, who have alleged the exact kind of retaliation that OSC is designed to investigate. OSC employees have alleged that Bloch has tossed out legitimate whistleblower cases to reduce the office backlog. The probe into Bloch’s conduct has been stymied by the fear of OSC staff that speaking to investigators will result in reprisal. Prominent conservatives, who support Bloch in part because he adopted a sexual orientation policy that makes it more difficult for gay employees to allege discrimination, have called on President Bush to protect Bloch from the OPM investigation.

Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, issued the following statement about Bloch and OSC today:

Having transformed OSC into a virtual black hole for legitimate complaints of retaliation, Bloch is decidedly not the right person to tackle the issues of misconduct and illegality that surround top White House officials. There is a serious question as to whether Bloch will just provide cover for an administration that has been covering for him.

There is plenty to investigate at the White House. We're very concerned that Scott Bloch and OSC won't do the job.


http://citizensforethics.org/node/30129

A task force probing allegations of illegal activity by Karl Rove and other former and current White House officials is in jeopardy due to lack of funding, according to its spokesman.

Without a last-minute infusion of nearly $3 million, the special task force may be unable to pay its staff and buy the kind of technical equipment it needs to investigate allegations that White House political operatives may have improperly injected politics into government activities, according to Jim Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

In April, Special Counsel Scott Bloch announced that a new, six-member task force from his office would probe the use of private e-mail accounts by White House aides, the firing of at least one U.S. attorney by administration appointees and presentations of political data by White House aides to other officials in government.

The cost of the task force for 2008 would be $2.89 million, according to OSC estimates. But Bloch started the probe long after he submitted his 2008 budget request. And now he's having a hard time convincing those holding the nation's purse strings to loosen up and give him some last-minute extra funding.